Our Summer Symposium on the Synod is off to a great start (and there will be more to come, through next Wednesday!) and there are enough interesting topics and great pieces to keep you going, even if your holiday weekend is rained out! What you can’t find on the symposium landing page you should be able to find on the channel page, and quite a few pieces are embedded within the text of this post, but let me help you... Read more
There is nothing like a Symposium in Summer, or at least that’s the way Patheos sees it, and when we’ve undertaken them, they’ve been ambitious, thoughtful and fun. This year, scaling back a little and trying something different, Patheos has devised a Summer Symposium utilizing the Public Square section of the site, and leaving each channel manager to choose a topic. Given the enormous (and it must be said, often unrealistic) expectations being placed upon October’s Extraordinary Bishop’s Synod on... Read more
After reading some truly bizarre and uninformed hysteria over the Hobby Lobby decision — so much incoherence on social media! — and at least three out-and-out hate screeds against Catholics being on the Supreme Court (imagine, had the decision gone differently, and people ranted against “those women” on the court!) I couldn’t help but think of these two excerpts: Hatred is a twisting perversion of paradoxes wherein one can claim a love for God so fervent that it justifies hating... Read more
All it takes to sustain a culture war is a few select voices shouting in ideological indignation and people who are willing to label themselves “left” or “right” and then fall in line. In the 21st Century, this uncompromising mindset is creating economic and political stagnation and a socio-political distrust that is destroying us. It doesn’t have to be this way. With Saints and Social Justice: A Guide to Changing the World, author Brandon Vogt dares to suggest that our... Read more
Christian refugees from Mosul have taken refuge in Saint Matthew monastery near Al-Faf, Iraq / Photo Ted Nieters Source[/caption] I almost didn’t have the heart to read the piece beyond the headline and sub: Iraq’s beleaguered Christians make final stand on the Mosul frontline; Some Christian families from Mosul have sought refuge in St Matthew’s Monastery…Others vow to take a stand against the Islamists – whatever the cost . Imagine having to leave your home, your work — pack up... Read more
When the Patheos Book Club told me they were going to be featuring the paperback release of Mary Eberstadt’s How the West Really Lost God, I wondered what else I could possibly say to recommend the book? I had brought it up — not once, but twice — at First Things, and referenced it here on the blog a number of times — always with the recommendation that people read it for themselves because How the West Really Lost God... Read more
A favorite priest calls him “Scary John the Baptist”, and there are my notes on what makes him scary, culled from one great homily: John’s scariness; he embodies faith at its most primitive; he seems unsophisticated and a little exotic. He is the wild man, of wild places; he is not civilized. There is in him no facade of civilization or society. He delivers a unfiltered message, one undistracted by the worldly things or the niceties. He disgusts the Sadducees... Read more
Sometimes you read a piece like this and you want to be nice, but it takes all you got. All you got. Then you say, “Lord, save me from myself…” And sometimes, the Lord says, “got my hands full over here in the Third World with real issues, so just be a dude and abide! In me.” And you really try, but then you read another version of the piece, and realize that no, you cannot abide. I cannot abide... Read more
Dr. Timothy Muldoon is an award-winning author and Catholic theologian. He is a researcher in Catholic higher education in the Division of University Mission and Ministry at Boston College, and a frequent lecturer, speaker, and retreat leader in the United States, Canada, and Europe. He is also a contributing writer here at Patheos. He writes with some very heartening news as Boston College and CARA release a newly-commissioned study on College Experience and the Priesthood. For further information on this... Read more
Growing up, I knew a lady who seemed ancient when I was little, and who finally died about two years ago, a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday. She was from Germany, and a stern lady with ram-rod straight posture, who never smiled or laughed in all the years I knew her, and yet she was never unkind or ungenerous. Some people just aren’t into levity, I think. Anyway, anytime I crossed her line of vision she would feed... Read more
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